I never lived on the Green Line, but I remember when I was preparing to find my first apartment someone advised me to avoid the GL if it was at all possible. At the time I didn't pay much attention, and it turned out that I found apartments on the Red and Orange Lines so the point was moot.

I wish they would replace the Green Line between North Station and Kenmore, with an underground version of Miami's Metromover system. Frequently running, automated trains within the densest part of the city.

The cars are much smaller than PCCs, so they'd have no trouble dealing with the tight curves in our old Boston tunnels.

The one thing they have in common is that they are elevated mass transit systems. People mistakenly call modern elevated rail systems "Monorails", when in reality they are just modern elevated rail systems. However, if calling them "monorails" helps dispel some of the negative ideas old folks have about elevated mass transit, that's fine with me.

Miami's elevated Metrorail is a standard dual-rail system, most similar to our Red Line. By contrast, the automated Metromover system uses smaller, rubber-tired cars on an elevated guideway. As you can see from my video above, the Metromover trains are very quiet and unobtrusive.

Besides Seattle, I believe the only other true monorail in North America is at Disney World. Monorail means "single rail". The cars drape over a single, large concrete rail. It looks cleaner and more futuristic, but it's also a more complicated and expensive design. In all other systems, the cars ride on top of tracks or guideways; they're just modern versions of an old fashioned El.

( That girl with her dress is more obnoxious than any passenger I've ever seen riding the â“‰! )

What you want is some kind of Automated Light Rail Transit system, such as Vancouver's SkyTrain. That carries 361,000 passengers a day and seems to be able to operate at headways as short as 1.8 minutes between trains (no idea if that's the theoretical limit). That's real and well established technology that handles heavy loads on a daily basis.

Technically the Green Line Central Subway handles more trains per hour than SkyTrain's Millenium/Expo trunk, but if you were to loop the "C" branch at Kenmore then it would be manageable.

An automated "Metromover-style" replacement of the central Green Line subway could not only increase capacity, but could also dramatically reduce travel times by providing express service between between specific stations.

The cars are still too large to pass one another within the existing tunnels, but the Green Line stations are large enough and long enough to have the guideway split off to a separate track for trains stopping for passengers, while allowing other trains to pass straight through without stopping.

Imagine at North Station, having a choice of boarding a train that will stop at Haymarket, Scollay, Park, Boylston, Arlington, Copley, Auditorium, and Kenmore; or else boarding a train that will go straight through to Park or Kenmore without stopping at all.

Such an automated system could dynamically respond to service needs. For example, when Fenway Park empties out, most passengers are headed to Park, Scollay, or North Stations. It could automatically dispatch additional designated trains to ferry passengers directly to those stations.

An additional benefit of converting the central Green Line to a high-capacity people mover, would be that the above-ground sections of the Green Line; including the new Somerville/Medford extension; would no longer be burdened by the inherent limitations of the old tunnels, and therefore could use faster, modern, less expensive, more reliable, "off-the-shelf" LRV technology.

The lack of signal priority (why heck the MBTA insists on not turning the equipment installed by Brookline on?!) and a modern digitally controlled signal/switch system system wide is killing the green line.

I assume the ridership is down on the green line largely from all the construction and service interruptions over the past year.

If you look closely at the project plans for the recently completed Beacon Street reconstruction project, you'll see the special LRT signals that were installed. However, there is nothing in the actual signal timing charts that allows for a "Green Line only" phase or transit vehicle pre-emption.

What good is a 4-8% increase in the T if the traffic on the Pike and 128 each go up 10-12%... It's noticeably heavier all the time these days. (no including the seasonal summer slow down) The State needs commuter rails going north and south which isn't going to happen so they should implement more N/S bus routes.

at that time, they're not *near* 100% capacity. they're over it. I used to take all backroads from Mansfield to Westwood because what should've been a 20-minute jaunt up 128 would end up taking an hour or more with traffic if I left anytime after about 6 AM.

And I think this is largely within reason for a year in which fares did not increase, but presumably, population did. Also remember that we are bouncing back from a year (2013) where there were two unusual weekdays almost totally lost (so, over two million rides) due to circumstances.

I don't know what's up on the Light Rail (Green + Mattapan). Maybe people are getting sick of the lack of signal priority, off-board payment, general slowness... or maybe it's just something else.

Government Center closing reduced light rail ridership. People going from the Blue Line to the Red Line either walk or use the Orange Line, people going from Blue Line to locations in the Back Bay now take the Orange Line to Back Bay Station instead of the Green Line to Copley or Arlington,people going from the Faneuil Hall area to Back Bay also now take Orange instead of Green. The Orange line is now packed (even more than it previously was) between State St. and Downtown Crossing. During the evening rush-hour at Downtown Crossing heading toward Oak Grove, it is not unusual for some people to have to let two or three trains pass before they can get on, especially if there has been even a minor delay.

Any numbers breakouts on the Silverline? I feel like the Silverline waterfront ridership has increased substantially over the past 2 years and feels like its already overcapacity during rushhours. The BRT current system seems like it's going to crumble as the seaport area continues to undergo massive growth in the coming years. It would be nice to see the numbers.